Bilibili.com bought IMay’s LPL spot, will be building a new team BLG (Bilibili Gaming) based on the current roster of IMay (source).
LPL entered franchising first of all lolesports leagues around the world, for next year, LPL will be exbanding to 14 teams, that includes Vici Gaming, who recently advanced from LSPL (secondary league) while also being the last one who had the chance to make it out of LSPL since after franchising, LSPL and TGA (city league) will merged into one LDL.
LPL announced earlier this month (link) that they will be conduncting verification process on all current LPL teams in their finacial status, structure building, player welfare etc, to determine whether they can hold their current spots.
Sources say, the bidding for the one new spot had reached a final offer at ¥90 million (US Dollars 13,613,468). Whereare the price which each org has to pay for staying in LPL varies, orgs with better results and structures can pay less than those who didn’t perform well last split, which leaves org like IMay and DAN who finished summer split last in their group struggling in keeping their spots since they don’t have a big funding group behind their names.
So for their benifits, finding new wealthy partner would the the ideal way. Since it costs a lot more in buying in than keeping spots, big companies are more willing to land a contract with them. NGA thread (link) revealed that Bilibili bought IMay’s spot last week, and today they announced it on their official page(link).
In their statement, Bilibili.com stress that the new team BLG, will be buidling based on the original IMay team, as to how “based on”, there haven’t been any new statements. We will keep you updated on the latest developments on this purchase.
Bilibili is the largest anime community in China, it holds video/live streaming on its website(wiki page).
Group draw for 2018 LPL has already set time at Dec. 26th, we will possibly see the whole roster of every LPL team by then.